Stress Fishes?
 

Why fishes in LFS are so calm and always looking at me but my fishes always hiding when I come close to the tank? :neutral:

Color pattern in the room? Im not sure, but my fish are the same. I always just figured they had more places to hide in my tank so they do.

They are like puppies at the pound,
they are on their best behavior so you adopt them.



My money is on the more places to hide in your tank.

My fish hardly ever hide...what fishy's do you have? Mine are all piggies and think that I have food for them every time I pass. Mine are also in a high traffic area.

FOWLR - 65G with 30G sump
Singapore Angel, Copperband, Spotted Kole Tang, Blue Tang, 2 Chromis, Shrimp Goby and a pair of true/false Clown. All over 2-3 years old.

+1

How long have they been in the tank? I found my Flame Angel took a good 1.5 - 2 months of getting accustomed to me before it wouldn't hide all the time. Other fish seem to be ok with a person right away.

I think it also depends on how quickly you approach the tank. Sometimes mine still get spooked if I walk by quickly.

You might be able to lure them with a little bit of food when you walk up all the time too ;) Mine seem to know when it's time to get fed.

Doh! How did I miss your signature. I guess I need more coffee. :wink:

Really strange though, they do not seem like fish that would spook that easily.

I think the fish feel safer at the store because there's more of them in the tank.

That is a good reason for me to add more fish :P

Yeah as long as your system can handle the load.

My fox face was stresse and half black for 5 months. Then when I added my yellow tang he started coming out and regained his yellow color

I think she was joking.

Because they are constaintly exposed to people walking around near their tanks.

At home we arnt glued to our tanks 12 hours a day, eventho we would like to be.

+1 Once we get them home they aren't exposed nearly as much to people. Leash included in her reply that her tank is in a high traffic area. IMO, that helps tons.

Maybe because they are hungry? They usualy starve them so if someone ask to see the fish feed, it will feed.

Also at the LFS they don't have places to hide, so that does not reaffirm their instinct to hide. Same thing with aggressivity usualy. You can have a tank full of discus and if there is nothing in the tank except filtration there will be no fighting at all...but put just one piece of driftwood and bye bye peace.

I think if we had no where for the fish to hide, they would get used to be in the open and lose most of their fear.

I have a niger trigger that was ok at the LFS when I bought it, but there was no place in the tank of him to hide. IN my tank I only see him at lunch time and the rest of the time he's underneat my liverock in a large cave that he digged in the sand. No fish are attacking him, as I only have a copperband, pajama cardinal, occelaris clownfish and mandarin...so it,s not because he's been attacked...don't ask :( It's not acclimatation either because I have him for more than a year now. At feeding time he's a beast...but as soon as he's full it's skittish mode again.